Dunbar

I would call it the competition that delivers the most free to air coverage and the highest television audience of the year for our sport. Binning it off would be a massive own goal. The shift to the league for our sport is great for week to week coverage and attendances but we have to remember that this is behind a pay wall for the vast majority of games. The cup is a great way to reach an audience with a recognised brand. I am not a big fan of removing the game with the biggest audience we have... it would be like Apple discontinuing the iPhone.

In that case, I agree with you. Season tickets and the shift of focus to the league has been beneficial for the sport. I just got thrown off by you saying the cup games were more exciting than run of the mill league games.

This post feels a little contradictory. You start by saying 'there felt little distinction between going to a cup and league game' and then two paragraphs later you say that 'a cup run was often more exciting than another run of the mill league game.'

Not just a consumer base, a particularly successful one. Season ticket sales and the growth in attendances for league games is very useful for clubs. The season tickets provide excellent cash flow while the higher attendances are valuable for sponsorship and in stadia sales. I would take that business model over a draw to see if I can get a couple of home cup games a year every day of the week.

This is quite a deceptive view though. For a long time, the Challenge Cup was a bigger match attraction than league games. Is that something the clubs would prefer today? Take Widnes. In 1983/94, they played two Challenge Cup games at home - against second division Dewsbury (in Round 1) where they got 4,005 and against HKR (Round 3) where they got 8,017. That 8,017 was their biggest home attendance of the year and well above their average league attendance of the year which was 4,528 (15 games). The focus of fans has moved from cup to league and now league games outdraw cup games - is that really a bad thing? What I find amazing is that Widnes are getting 2,936 in the second division while in the 80's - an era people consider bumper for our sport they were averaging 4,528 in the top division. As I have said previously on this thread, the shift in popularity from cup to league is a welcome one for our sport overall.

I feel like you have missed an excellent opportunity to get the word 'values' I here.

Morgan Smithies fined for a crusher in the Sea Eagles game. To be honest, I think he is very lucky. He put the player in a very dangerous position and was much more of a deliberate action than many crusher tackles.

Lewis Murphy didn't play for the Roosters today with Tate I'm 18 on the wing. Has Murphy suffered an injury setback?

Not really. In all things in life, you can choose who you associate or partner with and that choice reflects on you. Like others on here I am sure, I have had to downsize a workforce under unfavourable economic conditions, but it is probably the time when your integrity and behaviour as a leader comes through the most... anyone can enjoy growth and good times but handling bad news is far more challenging. P&O did (at least) two things badly. They let long term staff go without a full and proper consultation - and admitted that they did this because the terms of the consultation would have been unreasonable. Secondly, they then immediately replaced these staff with cheaper agency workers. Both of the above are illegal and I wouldn't partner with a business that acted like that.

Game of the season so far for me.

Sorry, not sure what you mean.

Problem is, come an October night in Manchester, it will be the teams who can grind out a win that will come out on top, not teams like HKR and Salford.

To be fair, if he goes flat out he still wasn't getting there. But yes, you want to see effort. The Hurrell equation has always been do you get more than you lose... probably more than any other player as his strengths and weaknesses are so obvious.

Anyway, after two posts on decisions, I should say it is a very good game. Really enjoyable.

It really does frustrate me that we pick such a tiny little bobble at the play the ball and then let the scrum half feed the ball straight to the loose forward.